Structured Fortran - was Re: Self modifying code, lambda calculus

[Jon Elson]

On 09/22/2015 08:49 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> On 09/22/2015 06:31 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
>
>> So, B was never actually a FORTRAN compiler, just Ken 
>> started
>> thinking about FORTRAN grammar and within one DAY took 
>> off in a
>> different direction.   By that time (1969 or so) FORTRAN 
>> was a really
>> old language, and considered way out of date by most 
>> universities'
>> Comp Sci departments.
>
> Which is why C started out with a COMPLEX data type...NOT. 
> FORTRAN can run on a much wider variety of machines than 
> can C.
>
> C was nothing more than a bare step up from assembly.
>
Yes, quite true, BUT it also makes recursion and pointers 
easy to do.  These are modern things that were really hard 
in the original FORTRAN.

Jon